BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1.0.1526 now available

While it's not quite the BlackBerry 10 update we were hoping for, the BlackBerry PlayBook has received a small OS update today. The new version is 2.1.0.1526 and brings along a few minor updates and fixes. Inlcuded are some browser improvements, audio boost, BlackBerry World rebranding, in-app payment support, SMS over bridge and more. You should see the update available now, but if not, go to your settings and check manually. When you get it up and running be sure to hit the forums and let us know how it's working for you.

The original timeline by BBRY is to release BB10 to PB after Z10 and before Q10, they should release BB10 on this timeframe, otherwise Thor will gonna broke his promise,(BBRY is now saying on series of interviews that they will release it "later this year"). If they will release it later this year, they will also miss a huge marketing campaign for free by deploying it thru thousands of PB and of course we will all be disappointed again. Granted they had focus on the Z10 and Q10, but they should not gonna left us PB owner nowhere, and if that's happen, I don't see them as a new BBRY but an old f%»\ing RIM. For now, we will wait and see.:-(

Please include a link to this quote. BlackBerry has gone with the announcement strategy of not announcing until it's ready; thus the surprise of this PB update. The only promise that has been made is that the PB BB10 update would come after the release of BB10 and "later this year".

It sure is sweet. I noticed the update when I connected my PlayBook to my laptop and launched BlackBerry Desktop software. I'm hoping that this means that the BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook is coming sometime real soon. I'm hoping the PlayBook gets updated to BlackBerry 10 by early March.

You guys need to think like programmers instead of ungreatful little school kids. Too many in here are whining about not having bb10 as an upgrade but have you considered this update may be nessasary to prepare our Playbooks for the full bb10 upgrade? Its been confirmed many times we are getting bb10, so chill and stop sh*tting on the programmers who are working to make this a reality. An upgrade is an upgrade and should be welcomed, not scorned.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

Well put, Vic. RIM hit an unexpected snag with BB10. During late stages of development it was realized that BB10 required 2 GB of RAM to be effective. The PlayBook has 1 GB of RAM. Despite that, RIM is still acknowledging that the PlayBook will get some flavour of BB10. I think Kevin wrote about this recently. Don't sweat folks, it is coming but it will just take a bit longer to get it ported over to the PlayBook. We obviously need it on the PlayBook and RIM is committed to that. As Vic said, don't sh*t on them. They're working hard at it.

you shouldn't have to side load apps to begin with.... if you want to side load android apps, get a droid tablet. i got a bb playbook to run bb not android. side loading droid apps is like using a penis pump to make up for what you don't have.

I got the PB for my daughter for Christmas... Thinking it would get her to stop borrowing my iPad all the time. Not being tech savy enough to realize that none of the Apps that I had already spent over $100 on would work or the music
She mostly wants to text with her friends and watch Netflix. We do not have a blackberry phone....is there anyway to text on play book? Do you have to have something "android" where you have bought those apps first, before you do what you call side loading? PLEASE help as she is still begging for an I PAD mini daily, Claiming her Playbook can't "do anything"

Was looking at a new Android tablet yesterday. My PB was about 2 years behind in most areas. Maybe this will get it to only 18 months. Browser comparison was a joke as well as other speed comparisons. I cannot envision buying another BB product, including phone, at this time.

Hey Bold :-) He's an ungreatful jealous troll thats why lol. The whiners in here need to start thinking like programmers instead of ungreatful little school kids and realize programming happens in steps, and this upgrade is in preparation for full bb10.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

Perhaps you could take a moment to adopt a CONSUMER perspective and begin to frame your arguments again?. I am a bbry fan, user and shareholder and a big part of the user experience (playbook user) is lacking. The range of issues that some of us encounter (full disclosure I have two) is discouraging principally because the solutions described for resolving issues are: wipe OS, hard restart, sideload... and my all-time favourite: be patient.

These are responses appropriate to programmers yes, not for general consumers. That's why Apple continues to win. And before you sh*t all over me just take a moment to consider if you would be so passionate defending iOS and Android failings.

For fun, guess how long it took me to type this on the laggy, crappy PB keyboard ... reminder, I'm still being patient.

Both of you are either dumb or playing dumb. Should we be grateful for buying 500$ tablet that is worthless. GPS function sucks, why because most of time you can't get signal. it is placed in lower right corner of the playbook which you most of time covers with your hand so signal is very bad... browser sucks (mayor problems with javascript) killing it's performance, crashes suddenly, etc. lack of applications. This tablet is a joke a 500$ joke. the only chance is to upgrade it to newest Blackberry 10 OS, which of course, they didn't mentioned when it will be released. So both of you shut the chew up!!!

If I paid $500 for my Playbook like you did, then I'd be bitter to...fortunately I paid only $150 so I'm good with my purchase. And you're being way to harsh on the functions you mention. They aren't half as based as you claim.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

In terms of pure speed and multitasking abillities the Playbook can go right up against todays best Android 4.2 with no problems...and remember here people, we're talking about a Playbook that was released on April 20, 2011. At that time, Android 2.3 was the standard, and if you've ever used 2.3 its a God dammed dinosaur compared to the Playbook.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

My wife at Christmas went out and gave me a Nexus 7 because she was tired of me constantly complaining "my tablet cant do that"
I have never looked back. This from a guy who was sold on the play book. I purchased a 16g on day 1 and purchased a 32g when the prices dropped. I carry the nexus 7 with me using a hot spot when not at home. I still use the playbooks for their multimedia capabilities. One is used for presentations only, and the 32 g is used to watch mp4 videos, mp3s, when on the road. Scheduling, has gone to android which works flawlessly with google.

Any update is appreciated, but unfortunately I take the fact that an incremental update is being released now to mean BB10 is still a long ways off.. if it was coming soon why would they even bother putting this update out?

Maybe this will at least be followed by a bridge update soon that will allow some features on the Z10?

Anyone know why the Playbook is sold out everywhere - with no apparent move to replenish stock? Future Shop, Best Buy, and many others just don't have the things to sell. Are they expecting new hardware to come online for retail?

Marketing it is a distraction, no one should complain that BB is focusing on phones. Athough I have a PB I think they shuold 100% focus on making the best phones in the world and after they achieve that they may want to consider other products.

Yeah, just last night I was texting from my PlayBook. I hope when I get home and update it won't break something. And I hope the browser really is improved, because my browser experience is pretty crap. Great for looking at checker boards though.

The browsing was great before I updated for the 2nd time. Now ever since the 2nd update, its sort of slow on most sites.
Now this update I believe is the 4th or 5th update. Something BB did that makes the browser really slow.

I am not all gung ho for 10 on playbook. If it goes to OS 10 then we miss out on being able to keep a movie playing while checking my e-mail or surfing a website. I love how the playbook does that... Especially with movies I have seen a dozen times..> Don't need to see every frame of the movie as long as the sound continues and I can catch glimpses of movie while changing apps.

I was actually wondering why the didnt carry this over onto the Z10, or at least give us the option like playbook does to either pause the movie or keep it playing when switching tasks.

I hate that it stops, HATE IT!

Give us the option to keep things playing when switching tasks! but i did notice if Im straming from the browser it stays on while i switch tasks, only when a video is playing full screen and go to something else does it pause (on the Z10).

This update is for the LTE version as well. Just have to figure out which carriers have released it. I'm on Telus and no go. Maybe Rogers is the only one that released it again. Will have to wait and see who's able to update on which network.

I had issues setting up my yahoo account where it would work but constantly prompt for a password. I actually deleted the account (since it is a backup one anyway - I mainly use gmail). Now I'll try to re-add it and hopefully it'll work fine.

can anybody actually confirm what has changed in the new PB OS update ?
i just finished updating my PB and the only noticable changes i can see is the name change to the blackberry app store to blackberry world and my browser is slightly faster, is their any other updates that im missing ? thank you

The update over wifi directly to the playbook, on charger, went fine. No problems. Very glad to have it and to have the update happen without any problem. I just pressed the update and left the thing alone, pressed the install, left the thing alone, and finally pressed restart.

I really doubt that the BB10 full experience will come to the playbook. And even if it does I think that on the wifi only machines, (without the faster processor on the cellular 4G or 3G machines) the performance will be disappointing. Let's see...

I've been wishing and hoping...update after update would contain a fix for preventing the PB from going to sleep or shutting the screen off. It should be up to the end user if they would like to prevent this from happening not Rim!

Instead if complaining about the lack of a BB10 update, have you considered that this might in fact be a preparation for the BB10 update? Ie. that the update manager itself needs to be updated to handle the BB10 update. Just saying..

The spreed sheets used to have a glitch where sometimes it would not open a saved worksheet

If you had one open and didn't save it by choosing close first and then save the Spreed sheets program would not open any files, it was at random thing, just did it when it felt like it
The only way to get it to work was a reboot

Have been trying to open & close and try different sheets so far so good the problem is not showing up

This appears to have been fixed in this new release of playbook Software

Includes the following updates for the W-Fi only PlayBook:
-Improvements to Gmail® and Yahoo!® account setup services
-Enhancements to browser performance
-Audio Boost update to comply with European Standard 'EN 60950-1/A12'
-Renaming of BlackBerry App World™ storefront to BlackBerry® World™ storefront

Why not no option to turn off PB from going to sleep or turning off the screen. People have been asking for this since it first came out. It's so annoying! Rim does not listen. No wonder why they are losing the battle.

Not specific to this update, but has anyone else experienced the PlayBook screen not turning off after plugging it in, particularly in the charging pod? Quite annoying since the light bothers me while trying to fall asleep, so I have to enter my password just to put it in standby mode. Or is there some shortcut I'm missing?

Some of you people disgust me and make me sad to be a part of this community!
Some of you people aren't even a part of this community, and yet here you are posting crap.
There are forums for your griping.

Whoot! Fixes my issue with My World and the available apps for upgrade not all going to the top.
It was getting annoying having to click the notification, wait for it to open the app world page, then click upgrade.
Now I can just hit upgrade/upgrade/upgrade all at the top.

Nice, I just turned my PlayBook on after about a month, and I saw an update 2 days ago so I did it, connected to my z10 and was hardcore disappointed with all the removal of features, but one thing I noticed was that app world was still not rebranded, and also every legal disclaimer/document still referred to the corporation as RIM, and RIME for its subsidiary, I was surprised that it had not been updated to BlackaBerry yet. Im guessing most people dont read that stuff, I blame it on law school, its just a habit I have now lol.

Also, did you guys notice the Z10 box still says RIM on the back?! I would have expected that to for sure be rebranded to BlackBerry!

Oh yeah Blacka Blacka berry, lol sorry had to.
I would expect that the initial boxes still had the RIM branding on them as the company hadnt switched over to Blackberry at this point, dont know though seems like an oversight considering theyre trying to get rid of the bad press associated with the old name.

Here is a product that was a complete bomb and went on a fire sale last Christmas. It is costing BB money to support it, yet they still bring out new updates. Shame on anyone who complains. Even when this product first came out, Blackberry was going down and the chances it would succeed were iffy. If you bought your PB after Summer of 2011, then you don't get to complain, you knew what you were getting in to.

I am thankful for continued support from Blackberry! I still love my setup a lot, the bridge features with the 9930 I have are still unmatched. Yes, there are better and faster products out there but I really can't complain. (it doesn't hurt that I sideloaded Words With Friends and Kindle, and I use PlayOn to watch netflix and stream movies from my PC anywhere I want)

+1. We could complain if we still had the PB that launched, but we have had a major OS upgrade for free, and are told we get an even bigger one in the future. We can't even truly call the device "two years old" because of that. I get frustrated, too. But I agree we should stop being such whiners. With everthing that has been going on with the BB10 launch, we get a little tweek?

Would it be possible for BBRY to increase the playbook's processor speed in a future software update? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the OMAP 4430 can be clocked at 1.5ghz. Could it be as simple as an overclock through the software, or is the processor locked at that speed? I know some androids can be overclocked through software or os tweaks.

If PlayBook is going to have issues running bb10 then BlackBerry may be working on a custom version of the OS for PlayBook. Either way we're getting it...it's just a question of when.

If Thor sticks to his word like a real man, then bb10 will be released for PlayBook sometime after z10 and before q10s release.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

I am having issues with Blackberry World, the updates are showing at the top finally, but every updated app is asking for my BBID and then I'm getting the 35005 error "unable to complete purchase" on free apps. I'm wondering if there's a glitch between BBID and Blackberry World rebranding that creates the problem.

If Thor sticks to his word like a real man, then we'll see bb10 on our Playbooks before the US release of the Q10. If we don't get it then he's another Ceo who lied...what else is new.
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

Here's what I have noticed.
1) Browser is definitely faster and I have less about 75-90% less checkerboards.
2) Load time is faster than it was (if only by 20 seconds)
3) App loading, email, browser, videos, pictures are all faster than they were before.
3) Have had it since 7:00 am this morning and in the past 2 hours, haven't had a single side-loaded android app hang or fail.
4) Haven't bridged yet so can't comment on any of those yet.

But, all said, I am happy that they are ironing out the minor as well as the major kinks.
Also, like some other people who has posted above, I do think that the update has been sent to enable the PB to accept the BB10 OS without any major hiccups :)

The consensus amongst Playbook owners is that they are dissapointed with the way Blackberry have handled the BB10 upgrade.

There has been a lot of discussion about this across a number of forums, including Crackberry. which indicates it as a significant issue for Blackberry.

For those who comment that these owners are whinging, not grateful and so forth, this criticism is unfounded. Most Playbook owners fully appreciate the progress that Blackberry has made and the incredible level of development work involved. After all, they played their part by road testing the QNX OS.

The issue at hand is not a technical one, it is a consumer issue. Blackberry promised the BB10 update, they allowed, rightly or wrongly, the perception that it would be available at launch to perpetuate and made no attempt to clarify this and they sidestepped the Playbook at the official launch, effectively snubbing this owner group.

If you purchased a Playbook and you are still on these forums advocating for it, that qualifies you as a dedicated fan and a loyal Blackberry user.

These people deserve better treatment as customers of the brand and it is a failure of Blackberry not to at least acknowledge that.

There are a lot of you complaining about the people that are complaining. We have every right to complain about a product as everyone else on every other platform. Of course if we knew back in April/May 2011 that we were spending $500++ on a DOA tablet that most likely wouldn't ever see support from third party developers, we would never have purchased the PlayBook.

Before you jump down my throat and start saying "Its not RIMs fault they're not getting support," thats not at all what I'm mad about. I can live without the apps. I'm mad because the PlayBook isn't a FLAWLESS, BULLETPROOF TABLET! I expected everything that is on the Playbook to run perfect 100% of the time, like on my old 9700. I can't tell you how many times the messages and the browser without notice just shut itself down. That is by far the most frustrating thing that could happen if your in the middle of watching a video online or reading an e-mail. I almost never multi-task on my PB and this still happens frequently.

How the OS runs IS within BlackBerrys control and it really upsets me that I spent over $500 on a device that frustrates me so often. I have no confidence that the Playbook is salvageable even with a BB10 update. Again before you jump down my throat and start saying "Well just buy another tablet" A: I'm a student who makes $8.65 an hour so I don't have another $500 to spend on a new tablet B: I don't think I'm going to be able to sell my barely used 16gb Wifi only PB and get my full 500 back. Or even a fifth of that. So I'm out of luck on that front.

So for those of us that are upset, we're allowed to be. Get off our backs.

come come BLACKBERRY we are all waiting for something MORE significant that this latest update for the PLAYBOOK..this update is hardly new worthy. This together with the unavailablity of the Z10 is MOST frustrating to say the least. We now @ 14 FEB 2013 and not one network has indicated when the new Z10 will be available here in SOUTH AFRICA - supposedly a major market for Blackberry..

Upgraded, no fireworks to report. I hope the Yahoo! Mail issue that a lot of people mentioned above and that I experienced too has been smoothed out [even though it wasn't that big a deal.] I'm still quite happy with my PB either way. As ususal it's best quality remains 'potential' ;).

quote. The new version is 2.1.0.1526 and brings along a few minor updates and fixes. Inlcuded are some browser improvements, audio boost, BlackBerry World rebranding, in-app payment support, SMS over bridge and more.

Dear Crackberry staff please pass my "regards". We do not give a sh*** about lousy updates (which they call them "minor bugs") they are stupid or just pretending. Playbook OS is a wreck. Browser is full of bugs especially in javascript, only way to eliminate this to turn that off. Blackberry world (have any of them tried to scroll down to look for an apps, it looks like there is no hardware acceleration support for that). if they are willing to send us a good news, lets start by giving at least approx. date of when the Playbook will get Blackberry 10 update, because this current OS is a bunch of cr***. >:(

Not sure why everyone is whining about the BB10 release. I have had the playbook for a year and a half and am delighted with it. I just bought a nexus as a second machine for the family and while it is good the PB beats it in many respects. The cameras on the PB for example, the video playback, the expanding of graphics (AND VIDEO), it is flash compliant....etc. The main advantage for the nexus is that I can connect a usb cable and transfer or stream files to it. The PB is a great piece of kit and I hope to get more years out of it yet!

I understand the moaning about yet another update that really doesn't improve on much... I understand the die hard PB users asking us to have faith and patience for the coming BB10 update sometime in the distant future....

What I don't understand is this.....

Since I got my PB in Dec 2012 there has been three updates released, that's one a month so far...

If the programmers working on these regular updates turned all their efforts to working on the BB10 update instead of wasting their time on useless updates then maybe we could have had it by now.....

There is an improvement with my PlayBook's latest update, the browser is much more speedy, but, every now and then when using the browser I'll get the message Could not resolve the host name. Anyone experiencing this, and if so, what is the cause, is there a remedy?

Wow that sucks :-( Well did you back up your original configuration? If so Its just a matter of a restore. If not then you may have to roboot your Playbook a few times. Sometimes it takes a few reboots for the new OS update to take. Also you may want to try a ''hard reboot'' in which you hold down the volume (up and down together) and at the same time press the power button. This will reset any abnormalities. Good luck :-)
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I’d rather be a Black Sheep than an iSheep any day.

Guys, did ANYONE notice the backlight going bonkers after the latest OS update? My PB's backlight goes on and off every 2 seconds after the latest OS update. Please HELP! Or tell me a process to downgrade the OS!

I just downloaded the new playbook os. Its functioning just fine and the browsing is kind of improve and fast. BlackBerry please keep bringing us new upgrades, can't just wait for bb10 os for playbook. Am a fanatic blackberry fan, keep up the good work people...

At this point, I do not recommend purchasing a BlackBerry PlayBook even if it upgrades to BB10. I appreciate BlackBerry's effort but clear your loyal heads a minute and realize that the PlayBook was released 2011! The price you pay for this tablet you can get a quad-core Google Nexus tablet were you cant make out the individual pixels inches away. I dont understand how the Playbook sells at all. BUT I hope BlackBerry puts out an Octa-Core Blackberry Playbook II in August 2013 after the Android war calms down a bit :) Looking forward to Samsung Galaxy S4 Release tomorrow :D

After doing latest update I can't get my Playbook to connect with the Desktop manager, can't transfer files to or from my device. My computer says it's connected with the device manager, but doesn't show up on the computer anywhere or on the Blackberry desktop manager. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This update has improvement in sound features,email and minor changes but big lag is that it's making PlayBook crash which was the 2nd solid wall of bb PlayBook that it never crashes so help Mr .cb has the update has done that crashing problem of give a downgrade solution thankxxx

This update has improvement in sound features,email and minor changes but big lag is that it's making PlayBook crash which was the 2nd solid wall of bb PlayBook that it never crashes so help Mr .cb has the update has done that crashing problem of give a downgrade solution thankxxx and bluetooth struck on

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